


Poetic Justice

by torestoreamends



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 14:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends
Summary: When Albus discovers that Scorpius kept Delphi's wand, it reawakens painful memories and reopens wounds that have barely healed...





	Poetic Justice

**Author's Note:**

> If you want someone to blame for this one, [Ohscorbus](https://ohscorbus.tumblr.com) is your woman.

Albus thought Delphi’s wand had disappeared. He hoped it was lost forever, lying in the shadows on a church floor in the distant past. It hadn’t been presented as evidence at the trial; someone had said it hadn’t been recovered. That had helped, knowing the object that was the cause of so much pain, that was used for murder and torture, was gone forever. So what is it doing here in the present, in the fourth year Slytherin dorm, lying in Scorpius’s top drawer?

It feels so unreal and out-of-place, sitting here in this bright room, in this space of perfect safety, and Albus stares at it in horror as he tries to comprehend what he’s seeing. The dark wood, fine grained with flecks of silver in the exact shade of her hair. The sharp tip, whittled into a cruel spike. The curved handle, almost too lovingly crafted, like one of her skin-crawling caresses.

Suddenly all the memories of a few months ago come crashing in on him at once. 

Scorpius’s screams cut through the darkness like a knife. Albus’s throat is raw with yelling his name. He can hear himself sobbing as he begs Delphi to stop. She throws him to the floor with a spell that feels like lightning and leaves his whole body crackling with pain. There’s a flash of green light and a rushing of wind in Albus’s ears. An unmoving body lies on the dew-drenched grass, and the weight of reality crushes Albus: one of his classmates is dead and it’s all his fault. 

He feels rough hands dragging him up off the ground and holding him fast. That wand, that ruthless instrument of evil, points right past him, grazing his cheek. When the spell comes and Scorpius convulses and collapses from the pain, Albus feels like he was the one who cast it. 

It’s all his fault. All of it. Scorpius writhing and gasping on the ground, Craig staring sightlessly up at the grey dawn sky, Cedric running into the shadows of the maze to meet his doom, the metal and glass raining down as she disappeared into the sky.

Darkness presses in from all sides, squeezing the air out of Albus’s lungs. The world has narrowed to a point even finer than the tip of that wand. There’s the polished oak of the drawer beneath his fingers, the ground somewhere a very long way beneath his feet, and there’s Delphi’s wand. That’s it. Nothing else. And Albus is being swallowed up by a crashing tsunami of horror and guilt and sheer, mind-numbing panic. 

“Have you got the Pepper Imps ready?” 

Scorpius’s voice sings out behind Albus, but he barely hears it. It doesn’t feel nearly as immediate and present as the past does. The memories are all right here, and Scorpius could be miles away. 

Albus grips the drawer as hard as he can for support. It’s the only thing that he knows is real and tangible. It’s solid, holding his weight even when his legs are shaking too much for him to stand. He bows his head and snatches at what little air he can get. His lungs are hollow and empty, his chest gets tighter and tighter, and he can hear his own desperate gasps, which mingle with the screams inside his head to create a horrible cacophony that drowns out everything else. 

“Albus,” Scorpius’s voice says out of the darkness. “What happened? Are you-“ 

Albus feels something brush against his arm, and then Scorpius’s voice falters. 

“Oh. Oh... I didn’t mean for you to... Merlin, Albus.”

Albus doesn’t know where the tears come from, but suddenly there are floods of them, hot and angry, constricting his throat and streaming down his face. Normally Scorpius’s presence would help, but today, Albus feels like he’s boiling over just from the sound of Scorpius’s voice. 

It’s impossible to get enough air to talk, so Albus’s voice comes out in a hoarse squeak. “Wh-why do you have- I don’t... understand.”

Scorpius curls his fingers round Albus’s arm. It’s the sort of touch that on any other day would centre Albus and bring him back to himself, but this time Albus hears the blood pounding in his ears as confusion and bewilderment well up inside him. 

“Albus...” Scorpius’s voice is trembling just slightly. “Y-you need to breathe. You look like you’re about to-“

“I’m fine!” Albus tears his arm out of Scorpius’s grip and stumbles away. His head is spinning but he can’t breathe and he can’t stop crying. Even when he closes his eyes he can still see the wand right there, pointing at Scorpius, about to unleash the sort of pain that no one should ever have to experience. 

“I-I just... don’t understand why you... why you kept it.” Albus gulps as a wave of desperate tears overcomes him, and he buries his face in his hands and sobs. 

“It was an accident, to start with.” Scorpius’s voice is still shaking and he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears too.

“An accident?” It comes out much louder than Albus meant it to, an incredulous snap of a question. 

“An accident,” Scorpius repeats. Despite the tremor in his voice he sounds calm and steady. “My dad handed it to me, so I put it in my pocket to give to someone later. But after that, everything happened so fast, and...”

Albus can see it all. The dual flashes of green light. Life extinguished right in front of his eyes. His dad collapsing to the ground and Albus going with him, clinging to him, his own desperate sobs shaking his body as he buries his face in his dad’s shoulder. 

He sinks onto the edge of the nearest bed as his legs give out, and he curls in on himself, bracing his hands on the mattress, head down, breaths coming in shuddering snatches that barely make it any deeper than his throat. The bed squeaks and dips beside him as Scorpius sits down too, then he feels a gentle brush of fingers against his arm. 

“Are you sure this is the right time to-“

Albus jerks his arm away. “Go on.”

Scorpius twists round and sits cross-legged next to him. Even out of the corner of his blurred vision, Albus can see that his eyebrows are knitted together with concern. 

“Well, like I said. It all happened so fast after that. Dad took me back to the Manor and I... I forgot. We had hot chocolate, and hugs, and it became the least important thing. I didn’t find it again until the day I got back here.”

“That... that was months ago,” Albus mutters. “You could have got rid of it. You should have-“

“I didn’t want to,” Scorpius says. He tries to make it sound light and airy, but it hits Albus like a train and his head flies up. 

“What?” He stares wildly at Scorpius, trying to understand what on earth he’s just said. 

Scorpius nods and twists his hands together. “I didn’t want to...” He spreads his hands then plants them on the bed next to him and starts fiddling with a crease in the blankets. 

“But...” Albus doesn’t know what to say so he stops speaking and concentrates on trying to breathe. It’s difficult to find a rhythm. He can’t inhale deeply enough to count himself through it. And he’s so perplexed by Scorpius that his mind keeps wandering back to panic-stricken bewilderment. It’s impossible.

For a second Scorpius messes with the blankets, then he draws in a breath. “I... realised that it reminded me of things.”

“Nothing good,” Albus interjects.

“Actually, you’re wrong.”

Albus sits back, staring at him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we survived, Albus. You survived. I survived. All that pain, the worst she could do, the worst that anyone can do, and we got through it.”

“But... But Craig... He didn’t...” Albus presses a hand to his chest and snatches a painful, rasping breath as he sees once again the body sinking gracefully to the ground and lying still. One second alive. The next, lifeless. 

Scorpius shifts over next to Albus and puts a hand on his shoulder, rubbing small, fast, comforting circles into his skin. “I know you feel guilty, but it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing more you could have done. You told him to run. You tried to save him.”

“But... But if I’d listened to you. Properly. We would have destroyed the Time-Turner alone, without telling anyone. Then he wouldn’t...” Albus closes his eyes and buries his face in Scorpius’s shoulder as more tears dribble down his cheeks. He’s trembling all over and he can’t seem to stop, but Scorpius wraps an arm round him and holds him tight, stroking his hair.

“I know,” Scorpius murmurs. “I know. But keep listening to me. We survived. We beat her, and now she can’t hurt anyone else.” He pulls back and Albus looks at him through a hazy sheen of tears. “You saved the world, Albus. You and that blanket. And whatever happened before that? We can’t change that — we tried that before and you know how well it went. But we can change the future. We can do whatever we want with that. It’s ours.”

“But you didn’t need to...” 

“Keep it?”

Albus nods and wipes his eyes. His breathing has eased a bit now. He’s still wheezing, but it feels as though there’s now some oxygen in the world. He can feel the blankets beneath his legs and the carpet under his feet. He unfolds one arm from across his chest and picks up a fistful of the blankets, letting the rough wool slide through his fingers. It reminds him that he’s safe. He’s in his dorm, with Scorpius, and the past is a very long way away. 

Scorpius gets up to give Albus more of the blanket, then perches back on the edge of the bed, one leg crossed beneath the other, picking at the toe of his sock. “It seemed like the right thing to do. To keep it. It felt...” He tilts his head to one side and thinks for a second. “It felt like... if I kept it she wouldn’t have any power over me anymore. What can she do if she doesn’t have a wand? It felt like I was keeping that bit of her that makes her anything at all. It makes me feel in control. Knowing that I’ve got her wand locked in a drawer with my sweets and my socks and my books.”

Albus cracks an unsteady smile. “Yeah, I don’t think she’d like that...”

“Exactly! Nothing’s scary after having had my smelly socks next to it.”

Albus wipes his nose on his sleeve and looks across at the drawer. “Can I see it?”

“You don’t want to see any of my socks, Albus.”

“No, no. The wand. Can I-?”

Scorpius hesitates. “Is that a good idea? Right now?”

Albus takes a shaky breath. “Of course not. When has anything I’ve ever done been a good idea? But I want to... It was a shock before. Seeing it. But I think I can handle it now.”

Scorpius looks doubtfully at him.

“I promise,” Albus insists. 

“I...” Scorpius twists his hands together, then he gets to his feet and goes over to the drawer. “If anything happens I’m putting it away again.”

“It won’t.”

Scorpius doesn’t look convinced but he reaches into the drawer anyway, as Albus braces himself, fingers twisted tight in the blanket. 

When Scorpius turns round, he’s holding the wand flat across both his palms. For all his talk of having power over it, there’s a reverence there that makes Albus’s skin crawl. He’s making it look like the dangerous magical object that it would be if Delphi still had her hands on it. 

“Stop that,” Albus snaps, shuddering. 

Scorpius pauses. “Stop what?”

“Holding it like that. Like it’s important.” He gets to his feet and goes over to Scorpius. “Give it to me?”

Scorpius holds it out to Albus, and Albus can’t fail to notice that his hands are shaking. 

“Why did you keep it? You don’t like it either.”

“I told you. Keeping it felt more- It would have been so easy to give it to the Ministry, and I don’t think Malfoy the Unanxious does the easy thing.”

Albus nods and swallows hard. “Can I...” He reaches out for the wand, and Scorpius draws his hands away an inch.

“Are you sure, Albus? It’s- it’s not nice to touch.”

“Positive,” Albus murmurs. 

Scorpius offers him the wand, palms open, free for Albus to take. Albus hesitates, working himself up to it. He screws his fingers into fists, squares his shoulders, then opens his hands and brushes his fingertips over the dark wood.

It’s slightly rough to touch; Albus had expected that. What he hadn’t expected were the waves of icy animosity rolling off the wand. It’s so cold his fingertips feel as though they’ve been burned and he pulls his hands away.

“It still feels...”

“I know. Isn’t it awful?”

Albus nods and stares down at the wand. “Scorpius... I get it. I know why you wanted it, but this...” He gestures to it and shakes his head. “This isn’t good.”

Scorpius’s shoulders slump. “Do you think I should hand it in? I can give it to McGonagall. She’d probably put me in detention for about a year, but then it would be safe at least.”

“No.” Albus frowns at the wand. “No, I don’t think you need to get rid of it. But we should make sure it can never be used again. Do you agree?”

Scorpius gives him a curious look. “What do you suggest?”

Albus reaches out and hovers his hands over the wand. “How attached to this are you?”

Scorpius shrugs. “She hurt you with it too. I’d say you have as much right to do whatever you want with it as I do. What are you thinking?”

Albus doesn’t say anything, but as he looks down at the dark, cruel spike of the wand that has hurt and haunted them for so long, he feels a flash of defiant fire run through him. He doesn’t need to ask to know that this is the right thing to do.

Steeling himself, he takes the wand in both hands. The malevolent chill bites his fingertips but he ignores it, tightening his grip and gritting his teeth. 

It takes quite a bit of force, but Albus isn’t concerned about being gentle. He’s fuelled by months of anger and pain. This thing was complicit in the murder of one of his classmates and the torture of his best friend. There’s nothing that it deserves other than destruction.

The break, when it comes, isn’t clean. Jagged edges and splinters are left behind. The core inside stays connected, sparking like it wants to defend itself from attack. It gives Albus great pleasure to keep twisting, like he’s wringing the neck of some sort of brutal beast, until finally the delicate shaft of the black feather snaps with a puff of ice cold wind and a crackle of futile magic. 

Albus grins down at it, chest heaving with the glory of vindication.

“Poetic justice.”

“You... you snapped it!” Scorpius gasps. 

“Just like she did to ours. Here.” Albus holds one half out to him. “One for you and one for me.”

“I-I can’t believe you... Albus!” Scorpius gives a hysterical giggle as he reaches out to take the half of the wand that Albus is holding out for him. 

“Do you think it was the wrong thing to do?” Albus asks, inspecting his half, then tossing it up in the air and catching it again. It’s so diminished in its two halves. It’s nothing now. 

“No.” Scorpius shakes his head. “No, but. Merlin!”

“You said it looked powerless before, and now it is. It can’t do anything. Even if she came and tried to steal it back or something. It can’t hurt you or me o-or anyone ever again.” Albus can’t stop staring at the fragment of wand in his hand, and he finds emotion welling up inside him. He hadn’t thought he had any tears left, but suddenly here they are, clogging up his throat again, blurring his vision, spilling down his cheeks more quickly than he can wipe them away. 

“You’re safe,” Scorpius says softly, and he’s right there, wrapping his arms around Albus and drawing him into a tight hug. 

“I-I know,” Albus mumbles into his shoulder. “So are you.”

There’s a moment in which Scorpius silently rubs his back, then he pulls away, brushing a hand down Albus’s arm. “Thank you.”

Albus sniffs and tries to swipe his tears away with the cuff of his hoodie. “‘S alright. Sorry for yelling at you.”

Scorpius shakes his head. “I should have told you. I shouldn’t have let you find it like that. I hope you’re okay.”

Albus inhales, and it feels like some of the weight has lifted off his chest. His legs are weak enough that he doubts they’ll hold him up much longer, his face hurts from crying, and he feels exhausted to the core, but at least he knows now that neither of them can be hurt by this ever again.

“I think so,” he says. “Just about. A-although I think I could do with those Pepper Imps now?”

Scorpius nods. “Pepper Imps. And a nice long sleep.”

“I don’t think I know any other kind,” Albus says, smiling through his tears. 

Scorpius grins and pats him on the arm, then bounces over to the chest of drawers. He puts his fragment of wand next to his socks in the top drawer and grabs the sweets from the bottom drawer, while Albus tucks his fragment into his trunk to deal with later. 

The world feels a great deal brighter as they collapse onto Scorpius’s bed together and curl up side-by-side. Scorpius opens the Pepper Imps and Albus tries to match his breathing to the steady, calm rise and fall of Scorpius’s chest. It’s difficult when Scorpius is talking at a million miles an hour and they’re both laughing so much, but that doesn’t matter.

The dorm is warm and bright. Danger is a very long way away. And Albus can’t help but feel that maybe Scorpius is right. They have all the power over the past. It’s never going to come back to hurt them, especially not after what they’ve just done. All they have to worry about now is the future, but that’s a problem for another day.


End file.
